


The Story About Grandmamma

by DangerousCommieSubversive



Series: The Shapes Of Our Lives [3]
Category: Young Avengers
Genre: Bedtime Stories, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Future Fic, M/M, Parents & Children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-27
Updated: 2013-05-27
Packaged: 2017-12-13 03:42:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/819550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DangerousCommieSubversive/pseuds/DangerousCommieSubversive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I got this anonymous prompt: "If you have the time, I would like to prompt you with the following scenario: Teddy falling in love with Billy all over again as he watches his hubby tell their daughters a bedtime story with his magic. Thank you!"</p><p>It's so cute. <em>I can't deal.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Story About Grandmamma

Bags of shopping had been appearing in the living room at a steady clip for most of the day, and Billy's text—“On our way”—arrived barely five minutes before Billy himself materialized in front of the apartment door. He had one hand on a large double stroller in which were several more bags and a small green girl with a smear of vanilla ice cream at the corner of her mouth, and the other arm around a bundle in an X-Men logo parka who sniffled occasionally. “Hey, Ted! We're home!”

Teddy emerged from the office and was greeted with a delighted shriek of, “Daddy!” from the girl in the stroller.

He grinned and crouched down to unbuckle her. “Hey there, Ali. You have fun shopping today?”

“We got ice cream!”

“I can _see_ that, yes.” He looked up at Billy, listened to the sniffling for a moment, and frowned. “Hey, Susie, you ok? Did something happen?”

“ _Minor_ meltdown in F.A.O. Schwartz.” Billy handed him their other daughter and started unloading bags so he could put the stroller away. “They had that new X-Men playset, the Shi'ar Imperial Guard one. Remember how it has that double-sized Technarchy figure?”

“Oh, sweetie, did the robot guy scare you?”

Susan looked up at him from under the hood of her parka, lower lip wobbling, and nodded. “They suck life.”

“They...”

Billy rolled his eyes. “Noh-Varr was telling her about his _adventures_ the other day. I don't think he realized how much he'd frightened her.” The stroller was unloaded, so he magicked it off into storage and dug his phone out of his pocket. “I need to call him.”

“Come on, ladies, let's go empty some of these bags and you can show me all the nice new warm clothes you got today.”

About halfway through the twins' rambling explanation of all the shopping they'd done that day, Billy wandered into the living room and held his phone out to Susan. “Sue, your uncle Noh-Varr has something to say to you.”

Susan took the phone from him and held it to her ear, frowning gravely. “Hi, Uncle Noh. ...fun. Ok. ... _there was a robot guy!_ ” She paused to listen, and then her eyes went wide. “Really?” She grinned and handed the phone back to her father. “Ok!”

“...Noh, what did you—no, you _can't_ fly her to the Shi'ar Imperium to punch a Technarchist.” At the sight of Susan drooping, Billy sighed. “Not until she's at _least_ ten.”

Susan brightened again.

Teddy looked around and frowned. “Sweetie, where's your—Ali, get _off_ the ceiling!”

Alison looked down from where she clung to the ceiling and grinned. “Dinner?”

“Yes, princess, I'm going to make dinner, but not until you're off the ceiling.” She promptly dropped into his lap, and he caught her with a little _oof_ noise. “Besides, you _know_ what happens to girls who use their powers in the house without permission.”

Her pointed ears twitched, and her mouth dropped open. “What happens?”

Teddy grinned, turning a green that matched hers. “They get visits from the tickle monster!”

As the three on the floor disappeared into a mass of shrieking and giggling, Billy stepped quietly backwards towards the door. “No, we're not being attacked, the tickle monster's just having a visit. ...we'll stop being cute where you can hear us when you two stop sneaking off to have sex during missions.”

Once the tickle monster had departed and the day's shopping had been moved out of the way it was time for dinner—macaroni and cheese for everyone. When the girls had been served Billy peered into his own bowl, elbowed his husband, and muttered, “What's _in_ ours tonight?”

Teddy grinned sheepishly. “Um...shiitake mushrooms and tasso? And some of this really nice feta I found.”

“You are the artisanal mac and cheese bandit. You should start a restaurant.”

“I got lunch at Dean and Deluca.” Teddy butted his head against Billy's shoulder as he served himself a bowl. “I got carried away. You know how it goes.”

“Dean and Deluca, huh?”

“Hey, inking is hard work. I deserved an indulgence.”

“If you say so—oh, wow, this is really good.”

“I'm hurt that you doubted my mac and cheese prowess to begin with.”

After dinner there was a brief interlude of very serious playing with action figures before Family Cartoon Time, and then bedtime was announced to a tiny harmony of disappointed groaning, and Billy and Teddy set to the difficult task of evening child-wrangling.

“But I don't _wanna_ brush my teeth!”

“All the X-Men brush _their_ teeth. You want to be one of the X-Men, right?”

“But I'm not _tired!_ ”

“I feel for you. Really, I do. But that doesn't mean it's not bedtime.”

And the last gasp—Alison and Susan glanced at each other, and then looked up at Billy with big eyes, and Alison said, “Do we get a bedtime story?”

“A bedtime story with _pictures?_ ” Susan added.

Billy laughed. “Well, of _course_ you get a bedtime story. What kind of a dad do you think I am?”

Teddy tucked the girls into their side-by-side beds while Billy made a show of inspecting the bookshelves and coming away empty-handed. Then he moved back, quietly, and leaned in the door of the bedroom while Billy settled down in the chair between their daughters, bookless.

“So what kind of story do you guys want tonight?”

The girls looked at each other for a moment, and then Alison said, “Grandmamma.”

“You want a story about Grandmamma Wanda?”

Both girls nodded.

“Well, all right then.” Billy straightened in his chair and rolled his neck, and then after a moment his eyes began to glow blue and an image of Wanda Maximoff in full Scarlet Witch regalia blossomed in the air at the ends of the beds. “Once upon a time, in the Wundagore Mountains, there lived a beautiful witch named Wanda Maximoff who had all sorts of magical powers...”

Another picture appeared by the first—Pietro, as Quicksilver, running circuits around his sister.

“And she had a brother, a very brave knght named Pietro who wanted nothing more than for his sister to be safe.”

The images became more and more elaborate as the story progressed and the tiny Wanda and Pietro traveled across the world, searched for their father, and fought the evil wizard Doom. With permission, Susan provided Doombots whenever Doom appeared, a tiny purple swarm hovering around Billy's larger construct. Billy himself seemed to get lost in the story he was telling, and as Teddy watched he found himself reminded of the boy he'd first met in high school, endlessly enthusiastic, gesturing hugely as he talked about what had happened in _Action Comics_ that week or reenacted the latest Spider-man news.

There were fewer Doombots each time they were needed, until finally Doom turned up and there were no Doombots at all, and Teddy looked over at Susan and saw that she'd fallen asleep. In the other bed, Alison had also drifted off, her ears twitching as she rolled over onto her side, her green skin dark in the light of the lamp.

Teddy caught Billy's attention and gestured to the sleeping girls. Billy looked at them, beamed, and dispelled his constructs. Then covers got pulled back up and tucked around small chins, the lamp was turned out, and he backed out of the room, leaving the door open just a bit.

It wasn't that late in the evening, really, but after such a long day the warmly-lit living room had a nighttime atmosphere, and Teddy caught his husband and swung him into a dance. “Every time I think I can't think you're any more wonderful you go and do something like that and I'm fifteen all over again.”

“Oh my god, you _dork._ ” Billy laughed as they sidestepped the coffee table. “You only love me for my bedtime stories? Is that it? Oh, whoa, why are we stopping—”

“Some of it's the bedtime stories. But really it's just...you.” Teddy had stopped them in the middle of the living room, one arm around Billy's waist, their hands clasped in the air. “I love you for your everything. Always and forever.”

Billy gazed up at him, suddenly not smiling, but in a _good_ way. “Love you too, Tee. I couldn't ever want anyone else.”

A long moment in which they _didn't_ kiss, not yet, and then they went back to dancing and Teddy said, “You know, we never got a honeymoon. We should do something like that. Go on a honeymoon.”

“Seven or eight years late, but definitely. I could probably talk Mom into taking the girls, or maybe Luke and Jessica—bet they'd love to spend a couple of weeks with Dani. We could talk to Noh about borrowing his spaceship, go take a trip through that nice empire you've got.”

“I've got a lot of projects right now, though...”

“So do I, I've got a dissertation to work on.”

“...want to plan on June, or July? It can be our summer empire.” Teddy grinned.

Billy started to laugh. “A summer empire. I'd like that.”

Pause, turn, _sweep_ into a low romance-movie dip, and Teddy kissed his husband and—

—right on cue, there was the sound of small feet, and then Alison said, “Can I have a glass of water?”

Teddy didn't straighten up, so Billy tipped his head back so that he could see his daughter. “Sure, sweetie. Glass of water. Go get back in bed, and your dad and I will be there in a second.”


End file.
